Warning: This is more of a rant, hopefully from a conscious parenting perspective. Sorry, Mom’s having a cranky day.

I just finished reading Artemis Fowl. Why? Because I have a book project to complete and it is due on Thursday.

Notice that I did not say my son has a book project due on Thursday.

True, his teacher did assign it to him and not to me, but who are we kidding?

My son is brilliant and creative and genuinely wants to do well in school; but asking a ten-year-old boy to read a three-hundred-page book, synthesize the 6-10 major plot points into one-sentence summaries, copy said plot points to little 3 inch by 3 inch papers, draw little 3 inch by 3 inch pictures to illustrate each plot point, and then create a giant graph, displaying these plot points and related illustrations in terms of chronological order and relative level of excitement is just too much.

Conscious parenting means taking better care of ourselves, so we can take better care of our children.

I had three unplanned hours to myself the other day.

It was rather strange.

A family friend had just pulled out of the driveway with boys in tow, on their way to a baseball game. I had already finished my writing for the day, cleaned up from dinner and done a little yard work.

What to do with myself?

I took a long walk with my MP3 player for company, followed by a solitary bubble bath. I called my mother to chat.

It was lovely.

It reminded me of the importance of self-care. I have written about this topic before, but it bears continued focus: We cannot possibly hope to take care of the needs of our children, if we are a walking mass of unmet needs ourselves.

My father insists that he can remember being born. When questioned, he describes the darkness of the birth canal and his emergence into daylight. He was born at home, in 1934.

He assures us that he wondered, in his little baby brain, “Where was I before I came here?”

Some members of our family find this story hard to swallow, but I am willing to believe.

I can date my own earliest memories to about sixteen months old, when my younger sister was born. With her arrival, I had to move out of my room and begin sharing with my older sister, which was not a hardship, so much as a change to my previously comfortable and presumably self-centered world.

There she was, in my bedroom, this little bundle of blankets and baby clothes. She slept a lot, and we had to be very quiet, so as not to wake her.

At the time, it did not occur to me that we would grow up to be the best of friends and confidantes; I barely registered that she was human.

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Meg Brown is a Certified Professional Coach, former corporate executive and mother to two teenaged sons. Meg specializes in coaching passionate individuals who seek to make the most of their midlife journey.